Over half of Australia's prisoners are 20-35 year old males (Media Release)

MEDIA RELEASE

February 20, 2003

Embargoed: 11:30 AM (AEST)

20/2003

Over half of Australia's prisoners are 20-35 year old males

More than half (56%) of Australia's 22,492 prisoners were males aged between 20 and 35 according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.

This age group was 14% of the total Australian adult population at 30 June 2002.

Approximately half of all prisoners serving a sentence had a most serious offence involving violence or the threat of violence.

Although 93% of Australia's prisoners were males, the number of female prisoners almost doubled in the last decade, (from 760 to 1,484) with the proportion of female prisoners increasing from 5% in 1992 to 7% in 2002.

One-fifth of the prisoner population was identified as Indigenous. In comparison, approximately 2% of the total adult Australian population identifies as being Indigenous.

Other findings include:

Australia's prisoner population at 30 June 2002 had increased by 34 (less than 1%) since 30 June 2001.

The national rate of imprisonment decreased by 1% to 148 prisoners per 100,000 of the adult population. This is the first decrease in the national rate of imprisonment in the last decade (1992-2002).

The national rate of imprisonment of Indigenous adults decreased by 1% to 1,806 Indigenous prisoners per 100,000 of the adult Indigenous population. This was primarily the result of a 20% decrease in the Western Australian Indigenous imprisonment rate.

The proportion of prisoners waiting for their cases to be finalised at 30 June increased from 12% in 1992 to 20% in 2002.

Up to 30 June 2002 the average time prisoners spent on remand was five months, an increase of 11% on the previous year. One in ten prisoners held on remand at 30 June had spent more than 11.8 months in custody.

Convicted offenders were less likely to be sent to prison for short sentences. Between 2001 and 2002 there was an 18% decrease in the number of prisoners who were expected to serve sentences of six months or less.

Further details are in Prisoners in Australia, 30 June 2002 (cat. no. 4517.0).